Ireland should accept our share of migrants, just as we were welcomed
It was the greatest catastrophe in the history of Ireland. The potato crop failed and even though the cereal harvest was good, the ordinary people had no access to it, under the English feudal system.
The emigrants travelled on rough cattle boats, many dying in transit. Now, 170 years later, an Irish Naval vessel, LE Eithne, has been deployed to the Mediterranean to rescue starving migrants from inflatable craft, fibreglass boats and barges, northwest of the Syrian capital of Tripoli. They are fleeing a similar plight.
The number of migrants in these cargoes of human flesh is expected to have reached 200,000 by the end of the year, and they are being sent to Italy, a country ill-equipped to deal with such huge numbers. The Irish Government is being well-recompensed for their naval services in this mission.
Though we do not have the structures to deal with such numbers, either, we could accommodate at least some of these people in their hour of need, if only as a humanitarian exercise and token of appreciation of the many countries that helped Irish emigrants.
